Lush UK&I Diversity Report: Summer 2020

Disability

Each respondent was asked, Would you define yourself as disabled (either mentally or physically)? with the option to respond: yes, no or prefer not to disclose. In the table below, you can find how many respondents replied per option. Further below, you can find a breakdown of percentages for all employees and for management. 

Gender

Each respondent was asked, How would you best describe your gender? with the options to respond: female, male, Non-Binary, prefer not to disclose and prefer to describe. In the Gender section, respondents were also asked, Do you identify with the gender identity you were assigned at birth? with the options to respond: yes, no and prefer not to disclose.

In the tables below, you can find how many respondents replied per option. Further below, you can find a breakdown of percentages for all employees and for management.

Marriage and Civil Partnership

Each respondent was asked, Are you married or in a civil partnership? with the options to respond: yes, no or prefer not to disclose. In the table below, you can find how many respondents replied per option. Further below, you can find a breakdown of percentages for all employees and for management. 

Pregnancy and Maternity

Each respondent was asked, Are you currently or have you previously been pregnant whilst working for Lush? with the options to respond: yes, no, prefer to describe or prefer not to disclose. In the table below, you can find how many respondents replied per option. Further below, you can find a breakdown of percentages for all employees and for management.

Race and Ethnicity

Each respondent was asked how they identify their race and/or ethnicity, with options based on the groupings used by the Office of National Statistics and UK Census. Below you will find the breakdown of percentages for Lush employees’ race and ethnicity representation. For a comprehensive report, please also refer to Lush UK&I Diversity: Race and Ethnicity Report Summer 2020

Religion

Each respondent was asked, What is your religion? with the option to respond: Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, no religion, and any other religion. In the table below, you can find how many respondents replied per option. Further below, you can find a breakdown of percentages for all employees and for management.

Sexual Orientation

Each respondent was asked to please describe their sexual orientation, with the options to respond: Bi, Gay man, Gay woman/Lesbian, heterosexual/straight, prefer not to say, and prefer to self describe. In the table below, you can find how many respondents replied per option. Further below, you can find a breakdown of percentages for all employees and for management. 

Summary

Learnings We acknowledge that the data is not complete and this report is our first effort at taking a snapshot of where our company is. Our main areas of learning are understanding who makes up Lush UK&I, and in future how we can gather the most accurate information on a larger scale to understand who makes up Lush globally. We understand how important terminology and language can be to our identities, so providing room to self-identify is going to continue to be a priority as we build on diversity monitoring at Lush.

Future Strategy

Diversity enriches our lives and our business, and our future aim is to regularly capture Lush’s global diversity and representation data.

As part of our future strategy we want to invest in and elevate employee voice and make evidence-based decisions. The diversity monitoring survey will be a part of this approach to gather evidence. We will use this information to analyse and compare alongside the responses to our Lush Listens engagement survey (details below). This way we are capturing both who makes up Lush, and how they experience Lush as a workplace. The Lush Listens engagement survey is one part of championing employee voice, where all employees are asked to evaluate and comment on their experience and life inside Lush. 

In 2017, we began an employee ownership scheme, Lush Employee Benefit Trust (EBT), across all of Lush’s 22 Group countries (those owned by Lush Ltd), where 10% of company shares are held on behalf of the staff. Because the EBT functions across continents and cultures, this gives Lush not just a global reach, but an accessible way to collaborate with employees. Intersectional Approach

In the Introduction, we highlighted our motive behind diversity monitoring at Lush. This was in response to and support for the Black Lives Matter movement, and the wider call for transparency. Please also see Diversity: Race & Ethnicity Summer 2020 Report.

We do not want to remain silent in the face of structural racism. However we understand that a large part of this is doing the required internal work. When it comes to equity, diversity and inclusion at Lush, we want to encourage all Lush staff to bring their full selves to work. Moving forward, we now feel in a more informed position to approach this work, understanding the intersectionality of identity, and celebrating all the ways in which the People of Lush are human.

Active Inclusion through Community Networking

We understand diversity as one pillar of our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion. To accompany the above surveying aims, we have identified four areas of action and opportunity that we see as ongoing work to improve equity, diversity and inclusion:

1. Ensuring safety, wellbeing and transparency through policy, guidelines and practice. 
2. Building on representation, innovation and creativity through products, recruitment, retention and mentoring.
3. Providing knowledge and toolkits through learning and development.
4. Creating meaningful connections through lived and shared experience with the EBT and the Lush Community Network.

In particular, we want to be active in creating meaningful connections and a sense of belonging within Lush. We aim to do this by growing our internal community network through dedicated spaces for community meet ups. Regular diversity monitoring will support us to understand what community spaces can be provided and invested to contribute to inclusion and belonging at Lush.

This will be the company we want it to be.